To celebrate the start of an all-new series, I've shared small excerpts from Chapter One throughout May. This is Part 3, and you can find previous posts here: Part 1 and Part 2. If you're new to steampunk, which is an alt-historical timeline that celebrates steam-powered machinery and Victorian aesthetics, this is your chance to get a free taste of what I've got up my sleeves!
Magic & Steam features action, adventure, a few explosions, plenty of the historical oddities C.S. Poe is known for, and of course—a healthy dose of romance along the way.
BLURB:
1881—Special Agent Gillian Hamilton is a magic caster with the Federal Bureau of Magic and Steam. He’s sent to Shallow Grave, Arizona, to arrest a madman engineer known as Tinkerer, who’s responsible for blowing up half of Baltimore. Gillian has handled some of the worst criminals in the Bureau’s history, so this assignment shouldn’t be a problem. But even he’s taken aback by a run-in with the country’s most infamous outlaw, Gunner the Deadly.
Gunner is also stalking Shallow Grave in search of Tinkerer, who will stop at nothing to take control of the town’s silver mines. Neither Gillian nor Gunner are willing to let Tinkerer hurt more innocent people, so they agree to a very temporary partnership.
If facing illegal magic, Gatling gun contraptions, and a wild engineer in America’s frontier wasn’t enough trouble for a city boy, Gillian must also come to terms with the reality that he’s rather fond of his partner. But even if they live through this adventure, Gillian fears there’s no chance for love between a special agent and outlaw.
EXCERPT:
Before he had a chance to respond, a palm-sized brass ball, perfectly round and smooth, dropped onto the ground between us. It splintered open, stood on spiderlike appendages, and then the tiny inner mechanics began to spin and whir, the sound growing louder than what such a small object should have been able to produce.
“The hell is this?” I asked.
The cowboy ripped away from my distracted hold. “Get up. Now.”
His unease brought me to my feet without conscious thought.
“We need to go.” He grabbed my arm, his strong blunt fingers digging into my clothing and flesh, and dragged me away from the inadequate safety of the wooden wagon.
I began to protest as the cowboy broke into a sprint that my much-shorter stature could hardly keep up with, but then I caught sight over my shoulder of what had managed to put the fear of God into him. That little brass oddity had grown to an impossible size, nearly the height of my own shoulders, and was ambling after us on its spider legs of spinning gears and steam-hissing joints. The top portion of the ball retracted back, and the ten-barrels of a Gatling gun unfolded from within. The cogs tick, tick, ticked as it adjusted its trajectory and put us in its path of destruction.
“Christ Almighty,” I swore.
I gave the stranger a shove and tore free from his grip. I raised an arm up and extended my fingers toward the sky. Thunder boomed from every corner of Shallow Grave and the air prickled and hummed with electricity as I tapped into the natural stream of magic encompassing Earth. When a caster—an individual with the ability to sense and utilize elemental magic—generated a spell, our bodies acted as a natural conduit. The raw magic passed through us without harm to our internal workings, while concurrently, our life energy replaced what was taken from the stream.
It wasn’t a perfect relationship.
Years of spell casting built up a certain amount of magic refuse in our systems. It was dangerous for new or young casters to make physical contact with us veterans. The magic in our systems could shock, burn, or maim them in a dozen other grisly ways. Then there were the hazards of interacting with a caster who was our elemental opposite, and of course, it was always possible to overtax our bodies and temporarily lose the ability to cast.
Hell, as if there weren’t enough safety considerations to living the life of an architect, scholar, or caster, it wasn’t even a legal life until the Caster Regulation Act of 1865. Congress decided it was better—safer for the masses—to allow the practice of magic out in the open after its devastating uses during the Great Rebellion. Of course, bringing the magic community out of the shadows meant putting us under the strict guidance of the government.
Enter the Federal Bureau of Magic and Steam.
Mandatory documentation was the price I had to pay, but in return I’d been given a badge and a certain amount of respect that, as a boy, I’d never imagined possible. While I might have been under more scrutiny than most agents—the last thing the government wanted was someone of my skill level going rogue or losing all sense of their faculties—at least this aspect of my life was no longer considered shameful.
A bright bolt of lightning shot down from the sky and into my outstretched hand. The fractures of energy crackled, popped, and washed out Boot Spur Street in an illumination of a billion volts of natural power. I swung my arm around, looping the lightning like a lasso, then threw it with all my might at the Gatling spider.
It immediately exploded.
Metal screeched as it was torn apart.
Nuts and bolts, cogs and gears, whizzed through the air like miniature projectiles.
The Gatling ammunition detonated.
I waved at the smoke and unsettled dust in front of my face. The air cleared enough to show scorched black earth where the spider had stood. And it also appeared I’d set the wagon and gambling hall on fire.
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